Is Mel Brooks Hiding in the Original ‘Naked Gun’?

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! was recently named by Variety as the best comedy movie of all time. Released in 1988 and written by Airplane! scribes David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker (a.k.a. ZAZ), the film stars Leslie Nielsen as Frank Drebin, a witless police lieutenant who’s investigating the shooting of his partner. In the process, he uncovers a plot to kill Queen Elizabeth II at a baseball game. The movie’s finale at the baseball stadium is especially interesting because that’s where we suspect a cameo from a well-known comedy director has been hiding for the better part of 37 years.

Take a look at the clip below, paying particular attention to the rabbi who appears around the 27-second mark.

Anyone who’s laid eyes on Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles director Mel Brooks before will tell you that the man in that clip bears more than a passing resemblance to him. Cameos were not uncommon in the Naked Gun movies, and in the original alone, you can catch “Weird Al” Yankovic, Reggie Jackson, and Dr. Joyce Brothers at different points. Yet, when you watch the end credits, Mel Brooks’s name fails to make an appearance alongside the others.

Did he go uncredited intentionally? Is it possible that Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker somehow found a guy who looks exactly like Mel Brooks and stuck him in there as a gag? Here’s a fascinating tidbit that has us sold on the idea of it actually being him: Brooks apparently contributed a gag to the movie, and it was a part of that very finale at the baseball stadium where we see the rabbi in the stands. The part right at the beginning of the following video, where Nielsen gets hit in the head with a baseball bat, was supposedly suggested by Brooks himself:

With that in mind, we ask again, is it even remotely possible that Mel Brooks didn’t play the rabbi in the crowd? It seems very unlikely. But if it is him, how did such a memorable cameo in one of the most beloved comedy movies ever made go unnoticed for nearly four decades? Until somebody involved speaks up, we may never know the answers to those questions, but if you needed something to convince you to rewatch The Naked Gun, the possibility of Mel Brooks playing a Where’s Waldo? prank on us as a rabbi in it seems like as good a reason as any.